


We Are Pirates

by NevaRYadL



Category: Far Cry 3
Genre: ASL use, Carlos is Mute, Citra is using Grant to try and kill Vaas and Jason, D/s relationship between Citra and Grant, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Grant lives AU, Lot of Mental Health things, M/M, Pirate AU-ish, Slave Trade, Trans Vaas, Vaas is trans fight me, more tags tba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevaRYadL/pseuds/NevaRYadL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant lived and then he went righto Citra. His friends were all saved and they turned right on him for what he had become. Not much to go on and keep his sanity until a certain pirate offers him a deal too sweet to pass. Now ass deep in pirates, Jason lives his new life as best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One of the Crew

**Author's Note:**

> Hey pups,  
> I'm actually a fan of the Far Cry universe while Nev isn't. Plus with both of us just sort of drained of Fallout and Dragon Age ideas, we've started looking into other places to write to at least keep something updated. Nev is working on Old Dragons and Swords and we're both going to be working on Nameless Infamy with myself probably working on this. a FarCry fic has always been on the to-do list so here it is.
> 
> Just some ground work of the fic in this chapter and some small info dumps, so sorry for the quality and dryness of the first chapter, I promise to try and make it a bit better as it goes.

“Jason, Jason, Jason… look at you.”

_Tatau ran up and down the length of his arms, from should to wrists with a few slipping down the backs of his hands and onto his fingers. He had a nasty scar across his nose from where he had stupidly gotten too close to a boar and got gouged by one of its tucks, scars all over his hands from working and hunting, scars all over. He had lost any lingering fat and while he was not a slab of raw muscle, he had the athlete body he had back in high school and before he became a college party-boy that drank and ate too much. The sun had lighten his hair a shade and darken his skin a shade, nothing noticeable really, but it was just another reminder of the time he had spent on this damned island._

“Look at all you’ve done… the destruction, the death, the murder, the chaos… for what?”

_Most if not all the natives on the island seemed to see him as ‘an ultimate warrior’. He had so many notches on his gun, so many whispers of how he had cut the pirate population in half and was taking his time picking off the last half. All the radio towers were his to control. He hunted wild animals without sweating and no longer winced when he tore the hides from their bodies to make his equipment. People called him a one man army and he was inclined to agree with half the crazy one on many fights he did while laughing._

“Your friends? Your family? The brother you saved only to turn his back on you? For that fucking cunt? How about that pretty little fiancé of yours? How she feel about you now?”

_He had pushed Grant out of the way of a bullet that would have hit his throat. Vaas had, of all things, stepped on a shard of glass and it crunched underneath his boot. It saved Grant’s life probably. But what did his oh so grateful brother do not long after they tried to hunt down their friends? Found Citra and was going all mushy after her while she shook her ass and tugged on his leash. Now his brother was the sex toy of a megalomaniac bitch with a hard on for warriors. Daisy was beside herself, crying day and night refusing to do much. Lisa… Lisa could hardly look at him, the tatau, the scars, the guns, the violence in his eyes, the inner sadistic monster that had been freed… she hated him now…_

“Snow white, you are a lot of things… but I never thought of you as a man with nothing to lose… that’s a very dangerous man indeed. Amigo, you are a very dangerous man. Everyone can feel it, like talking to a man with guns for fingers and rocket launchers for arms. And you’ve got nothing left to lose now, right? Lingering morals about your friends? Bullshit, I could pop them and you’d probably be mopey and shit for a day and then get over it. Your brother? You hate Citra almost as fucking much as I do, Snow White, you’d probably scalp him and her the next time you see them.”

_He hated all of them. He only met them through his rich school distract and they only ever hung out when they were all blowing their parent’s money. Friends? What bullshit, while he was out saving their ass they got all high and huffy about anything he did. ‘Jason, why are you killing so many guys?’ ‘Jason, why do you have so many tattoos, you look like a gang member’ ‘Jason why are we in a cave? It smells here!’. Fucking bullshit he was so fucking done with it!_

“Tell you what, mi amigo, the big, bad boss man is really fucking tired of fighting you. He’s lost a _lot_ of men trying to capture you and try and get your friends back. Send your friends out on that boat I now you’re fucking hiding from me. We cause this huge fucking explosion with a couple of rejects that look like your friends and boom! Friends gone, you with them. Put a mask over that pretty face of yours and work for me. I understand you amigo, I really do, and you know what we could do together? Cut that fucking bitch Citra down and with her out of the fucking picture… we could go big and become the big, badass pirate bosses of the island.”

_Join the pirates... or try to convince himself that he was a normal guy and return home once the boat was finished. Friends’ safe, brother to be hunted down and ripped from Citra. Join the one person on the island that probably did understand him or continue to seethe and writhe as he dealt with his friends that he had come to hate so much. Join the pirates and continue having the twisted fun he had been having so far… or get dragged back to society where he would eventually probably lose his mind._

“I’ll be waiting, pretty white boy,”

* * *

“Hey! HEY!”

He blinked out of his stupor and looked up at the man standing before him. A familiar face of six months and going strong was smiling down at him, hands on his knees like he was expecting something.

“Sorry, Vaas,” Jason said.

“Don’t go blacking out on me, amigo,” Vaas said, baring those white teeth in a whimsical smile with a hard sadistic edge, “Else I take away all the party favors.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” He said with an upbeat of fake humor.

Unlike the rest of the pirate crew, he was not doped up on the rainbow of drugs that was supplied to the pirates. There was just something about them that annoyed him more then anything, wanting to keep a clear mind as he was himself for the first time in his pathetic life. If only to keep people off his back he sometimes smoked weed with Vaas and one or twice popped a pill that he tucked underneath his tongue to spit out later. Just one of the many things he did to keep the pirates from already being overly suspicious of their mysterious crew member.

“Come on, amigo, we got ourselves some work to do,” Vaas said, turning and gesturing forward as he walked.

He adjusted the large goggles covering the upper half of his face and the bandanna covering the bottom half of his face. The guys around the fire that he was hanging out with let out gruff goodbyes as he got up and followed after his short boss, the heavy tint of his goggles making it hard to pick out the bright red of Vaas’ shirt out of the darkness of the night. Eventually he would find night time goggles so that it would not bother him, but the amount of time that he spent wearing the goggles sure was giving him a hell of a set of night vision.

Vaas was walking out towards the beach, night time tide washing in across the soft, white sand with the full moon overhead making the sand almost glow with whiteness. Water came close to licking up against Vaas’ worn combat boots, but the strangely chipper pirate did not seem to mind. Then again, he hardly ever seemed to mind getting soaked with the salty ocean water whenever. Probably used to it with living on the island all his life.

“What kind of work?” He asked his boss.

“Easy shit, Princess,” Vaas called out so he could hear him over the ocean waves, “Just driving some dead rejects out to the dumping ground.”

The slave trade here on the island. He was so numb to it now, just another part of the job with the pirates. Once he had felt terrible about it, crying himself to sleep at night and even attempting a few times to free slaves from their fate. One too many times of Vaas beating the shit about him and Vaas blowing out the brains of people in front of him and he just started to numb himself to it. It was like shooting pirates in the beginning and getting Tatau, if he kept at it long enough then it would be just like breathing or reloading an automatic rifle.

“You driving or me?” He asked, adjusting the strap holding his rifle on his back more out of habit then anything. It was getting dusty since it had been forever since he shot something.

“Carlos is,” Vaas answered.

“Okay.”

Vaas was probably higher than a kite and seeing sounds and rainbows blasting out of the trees, and after he had crashed the last two cars, he was not trusted driving anything. Not that he had anything wrong with Carlos, the strange pirate that was Vaas’ second hand man in well, everything. Carlos was actually one of the two people that knew who he actually was besides Vaas and kept the secret close to heart, not to mention just generally level headed and cool tempered.

Parked just a few yards down the beach was a dinged up, dirty and mud colored jeep. Sitting in the driver’s seat and idly tapping his fingers against the wheel was Carlos, bobbing his head as the radio played some local tunes. Loaded in the back was some canvas wrapped bodies stained with blood. The bodies of the rejects, people who could not get a decent ransom to save their lives and were not suited for the various slave trades that ran through the island like blood.

“Hey! Carlos!” Vaas called, throwing up his hands.

Carlos, ever silent, nodded towards the big boss man, reaching over to turn down the volume of his music. Vaas gave a friendly pop to Carlos’ shoulder and then climbed over him to claim shotgun. That left sitting between them or sitting with the corpses at the back. Since Vaas was not yelling for him to take either, he choose sitting between them, grabbing the frame and swinging himself over Carlos and easing his weight in between the seats, taking a moment to fold his legs and bring them close to his chest. 

The, thankfully, sheathed machete on his caught on Vaas’ seat and prodded his hip and got a rather colorful strong of Spanish directed at him as Vaas shoved it away. Just from what he gleaned of the language, he was sure that Vaas was making a vague dick joke about poking him and telling him to shove it up his ass. He let out a snort and Vaas swatted at him, still spitting out Spanish.

Carlos made a motion with his hands and it took a few moments of remembering the late night studying of that book that Carlos gave him to recall the hand signs and what they meant.

“Oh!” He said, grabbing at his goggles and pulling them to rest on his head.

The light, even of the night, made him scrunch up and blink a few times from the brightness as he heard Carlos start up the jeep and reverse to start driving down the beaten road that lead away from the beach. He scrubbed at his eyes, always crusty from sheer lack of sleep as the jeep putted along, hearing Vaas curse at the radio as he flipped through the channels. He settled for a station blaring rock in thick and quick Spanish tongue. He only caught tidbits but it at least sounded nice.

Carlos made a couple of hand motions and Vaas laughed loudly.

With a quick jerk he pulled down his bandana and licked his dry and chap lips. A rough, copper tasting scar cut through the left side of his lower lip, something that he got from one of the fights with the other pirates and he often licked it out of habit. Something about the memory of tasting blood from his teeth and open lip. Of course, it was one of the reasons that it healed so poorly, but, another scar on his face was no skin off his bones.

“Hey, hey Snow White,” Vaas said “Welcome to the party!”

He scratched at his jaw, thinking about how he needed to shave something fierce. He had a thin beard going on instead of his usually five’o clock shadow. He probably also needed a real bath instead of getting dunked into the ocean whenever Vaas started complaining about his smell.

Vaas started singing along to the song, Carlos bobbing his head as the jeep kept puttering along. He just sat there quietly, wondering if his machete was sharp enough for a sloppy shaving job and maybe even hack a few inches of hair off his head. Maybe if he asked nicely, Vaas would cut his hair. Man seemed to do his own hair just fine.

“Carlos, did we get the shipment in?” Vaas questioned.

Carlos bobbed his head, making a few quick motions of his free hand.

“Mangos and steak for dinner tonight!” Vaas cheered.

“It’s past midnight,” He pointed out.

“…Mierda? Really? Amigo those pills…” Vaas said kind of spaced out.

Vaas had a drug problem, no one, not even Vaas would deny that. But no one had the balls, courage or even heart to try and forcibly clean him up.

Vaas had issues, there was no doubt about that. Even doped of out his goddamn mind they seemed to bleed through. Bouts of anger, bouts of hysteria or heightened emotions, paranoia, swatting at things that were not there or claiming to hear things that were not there. He was not a doctor, but Vaas had some serious psychological issues and the drugs were the only things keeping him together most of the time. Not that he blamed Vaas himself, just from the bits that he learned and gathered from those around him. Especially since he knew that cunt that still held Grant on a leash. If Vaas grew up and was used by that bitch and probably introduced to drugs early on and made to do the pirate’s trade, he was actually surprised that the man kept it together as well as he did, drugs or no. Besides, Vaas functioned to the best of his ability on or off, and one day they would knock that bitch off.

“You’re good man,” He said, smacking Vaas' thigh friendly like.

“Still, stuff might be a bit heavy,” Vaas sighed almost like he was disappointed “Find some off-brand shit in the mean time.”

They came to their little dump site in the middle of a forest. While it seemed like any other patch of foliage, trees and birds, where the foliage was actually dipped down quite a bit into the earth and easily hid bodies. If that was not enough, animals had come to figure out that fresh meat was dumped off at site regularly and ate pretty much everything there, leaving nothing but bones that eventually sank when it rained and then the mud swallowed them whole.

Carlos killed the engine while Vaas and himself hoped out and went to dumping bodies.

He hauled a body onto his shoulder and went over to where he knew the depression was and give it a toss as far as it would go. The canvas covered body sailed through the air and fell through the plants, rustling them slightly as the body fell with a crunch as it landed on dried bones that had yet to be devoured by the earth. Vaas just as easily picked one up, despite his shorter stature, and did the same but putting the body a bit away. It made it easier to hide and for animals to eat them when they were evenly thrown out. They threw out seven bodies and a few bags of personal belongings. Vaas shifted through them to see if there was anything that caught his fancy one last time before tossing them. He did not look, still clinging to having some respect for the dead before tossing them into the plants as well.

“See, easy work Snow White?” Vaas grinned up at him before smacking his back, “Let’s head back so I can sleep.”

Surprisingly, Vaas took the seat on the ground when they climbed back in, but still claimed ownership of the radio. He decided that he wanted to listen to something a bit calmer as Carlos started up the jeep again and pulled out to make it back to camp. He idly put his feet up on the dash and listened to the songs that Vaas flipped through. At some point Vaas muttered a very colorful string of Spanish and turned it to the same station as before, still blaring some heavy Rock.

Carlos got his attention with a snap of his fingers and made a few familiar motions. With a nod he pulled down his goggles and pulled up his bandana, once again hiding his face and darkening his vision until it was familiar and comfortable. Vaas spat out something as he flipped through the controls of the radio.

“You okay, boss?” He asked.

Vaas spat out something else, only giving him a glare.

“Sorry,” He offered, turning to look out the windshield. 

After a few moments, Vaas spat out something about the radio that not even he knew and then he felt Vaas’ head against his hip, the hair of his Mohawk stabbing into his side.

* * *

A ski mask, that was what he slept in because sleeping with goggles hurt too much. In the cot furthest from everyone else in the bunkhouse, head on a thin pillow and sleeping in a ragged tank-top and his boxers. The Tatau was nothing to hide, because a few of the other pirates had it too, though not as extensive as his. The scars and sun kissed skin was nothing to really bother over really either, since the wide range of people that Vaas recruited into his little pirate crew included a huge range of skin tones.

His face though… people knew the face of the infamous ‘Snow White’ that they hunted for months before mysteriously disappearing. They knew the face of the man that robbed them of the lives of their comrades, their drug shipments, their slaves and wrecked their slave trade for weeks and if they found out that he had cracked and suddenly joined them… there was more than a few people that would flay him alive.

As he settled down for the night, he heard the voices of some of the other pirates as he settled down. Some various languages mixing together into a strangely comforting sound as his head hit the pillow and he relaxed for the night. He caught a few names and places as his eyes closed and his mind started to darken with sleep.

_Tomorrow… would be just another day…_


	2. Like Hunters, Like Dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a note, I used google translate for the Spanish in this chapter, so if anything is terribly wrong I deeply apologize.
> 
> But I set up what's to come and why I put 'Vaas is trans fight me' tag, so for those of you looking forward to that. I hope I did better this chapter in terms of quality that you all enjoy this.
> 
> Have a good morning, afternoon and good night pups!  
> -The Muse Six

Six AM used to be ‘oh god why am I alive’ o’clock to him. Too early to be alive and chances were not long after he had closed his eyes after a full day of fulfilling his adrenaline addiction. There was just something about the adrenaline junkie life style that almost demanded that you go till four in the morning and then sleep in until noon or later. Sometimes he went on stints of going thirty six or forty eight hours of nonstop stupid shit, tripping out as his brain fried in his skull from the lack of sleep, better then any drug he tried he would brag to his brothers as they just chuckled and shook their heads like he was not burning through his body like a dumb-ass. But hey, most of the time he got a solid eight hours and coffee and energy drinks worked on everything, including his wreaked ass sleeping schedule.

Six AM was now usually the latest he slept in. Most of the time he got roughly six hours of sleep and woke up at four or five AM for a full day. For the energy that he needed to fill in what sleep refused to fill in, he got his caffeine kick from some coffee that someone made that was usually hot water and grounds sloshed together and passed around in dirty metal cups. When coffee failed him, he got bursts of adrenaline with the jobs he did through the day and could mostly function with all of his faculties, he barely noticed how tired he was these days. Normally he passed out as soon as his eyes closed when his head hit the pillow whenever the day was done.

At six AM, he crawled out of bed and pulled on his dirty ass jeans, stained with blood, oil, and sea salt and gunshot residue. It usually took almost literally an arm and leg to trade shit with the other pirates, since most did not trust him. Getting some even slightly cleaner jeans that were not fraying at the bottoms of the legs or where they were cut was pretty much pointless when no one gave a shit, himself included. Maybe he could take a swim in the ocean and clean them up, though that usually left them stiff with ocean sea salt and uncomfortable against his skin. They did not stink yet, so he figured it would put it off for now.

The air already felt hot and humid, probably meant it was going to be a hot day or at least hot compared to how hot it was normally on the islands, so he left his sleeping tank-top on before quickly taking his ski mask off and replacing it with his goggles and bandanna. His belt went on with the machete normally attached to it, worn out combat boots over some crusty and falling apart dirty socks on his feet and then his small first-aid kit that the kept attached to his belt for emergencies. With that he was ready for whatever the day could possibly have in store for him, his quick wit ready to tackle whatever he was not ready for, before going to go find his boss by first leaving the bunkhouse.

There were already a few people up and about in the bunk house. A woman was hissing out some rather colorful Spanish as she pried herself out of a cot with another woman in it, tangling herself in the blankets and hitting the floor with a thud and making her girlfriend roar with laughter. A guy was sharpening a few knives and reverently cleaning them before adding them to a leather satchel, the bright red bandanna tied to his bicep a good indicator that he was in for a long day of running between camps. An older teenager with faded crimson hair was putting away an empty syringe, probably getting his kick for the day in liquid form in the crook of his arm. In the other far corner a guy had a hand down his pants and openly got a quick one out while looking at a dirty and worn Playboy that was probably older than everyone in the bunkhouse. Just a normal, relatively calm morning for Vaas' pirates as they got ready for their days, he was just glad that there was not a fresh drug shipment in, the mornings after were _nuts._

Outside a few people were already getting fires together and managing to make food, shooting their early morning doses of poison and socializing as well as someone could when tired and fresh out of bed. A few people were already getting weapons and leaving, ready to start the morning shift from hell as they went to do their jobs around the island, a few groaning about the heat already and confirming his fear about an extra hot and humid day ahead of them. He went over to where he could see Carlos sitting in his usual spot in some buddy shade, rubbing his tired eyes and frying up some delightfully greasy mystery meat and fruit together. A breakfast comprised of sugar, protein and caffeine abomination was the best thing to him now, instead of whatever processed junk food that he used to eat.

“Morning,” He said, patting the silent man’s shoulder.

Carlos yawned in response before tilting his head to the metal pot of what he assumed to be coffee sitting right in the fire. It took a stick to get his much needed day starter out of the fire and some creative tilting to get it into a cup before he was slurping down the disgusting concoction. Extremely strong, blacker then hell and honestly he could drink this stuff all day, the days since it gave him five alarm heartburn or grossed him out long gone. When you did not do drugs like him unlike the rest of the pirates, caffeine was almost a necessity with how he could not sleep. Three cups later and almost feeling alive and human, Carlos sat the hot pan on a box between their legs and offered him a fork to chock down the greasy cooked meat and fruit. After a few bites he concluded that the meat was boar and some lizard and the fruit a combo of mangoes and probably dragon-fruit. Damn, Carlos could cook, the glorious mute bastard.

After a few moments of eating silently, Carlos caught his attention and made a few motions. After a few tries of trying to get his still tired mind to read the hand signs, he realized that he was asking after Vaas.

“If he isn’t up and already about, then he’s out cold from whatever’s he taking,” He said, stuff a chunk of boar into his mouth.

Carlos made several slightly worried hand signs.

“Yeah, I’ll go check in on him,” He sighed, inhaling another shot of caffeine before getting up and looking for the boss.

Vaas had an entire building to himself, the same that he vaguely recalled shooting through months ago trying to kill his boss at the whimsy of that deranged and manipulative sister of his. While it was the largest building out of the main camp, it had a lot less room to move around in because it was stacked with most if not all of the collected boxes of drugs, ammo, guns, loot and miscellaneous items that Vaas collected from the years. Carpets, skulls, jewelry, clothing, phones, a couple of cameras and laptops and a few license plates ripped off renter cars covered the floor until it was almost a parkour session to get anywhere inside. When he opened the door, one of the many wild dogs that the camp kept as pseudo pets let out a lazy, short bark at him and then let its head drop down into the pile of dirty and blood stained clothing it was using as a bed. He thought that it was Dutch, a dog that had been lazy and mostly quiet since being a puppy that Vaas loved to death and back. Dutch certainly was a chubby puppy from being well fed and loved by the pirate king.

“Vaas?” He called out softly, mindful of any hangover headaches that Vaas might have had.

He went a little further in, nudging a few boxes of ammo into place that Vaas probably knocked loose in his drugged stupor of getting back to bed. Past a few cloth curtains, he found one of the nooks that Vaas slept in. Personally, he had no idea how a couple of crushed boxes and just a huge pile of blankets and sleeping bags made a comfortable bed that Vaas seemed more than happy to litter around his place. But sleeping in this one nest of cloth was a shirtless Vaas, eyes closed as he curled up on his side and loudly snoring away.

“Vaas?” He tried again.

Still not so much as twitching, he went over and eased his weight down so that he could shake the shorter man. Vaas’ skin was burning up as he wrapped his fingers around the man’s stringy shoulder, probably still the drugs free running and dancing through his veins and his body trying so hard to burn it away. Damn, he knew that Vaas tried some crazy shit but this latest kick seemed a bit intense… he would probably be the unlucky bastard to try and get him off it.

“Eh… c-como?” Vaas groaned after a moment.

“Come on, get up,” He said.

Vaas turned his head and nuzzled the blanket, breathing evenly.

“Vaas,” He snapped.

Vaas kept pretending to sleep.

“Vaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzz,” He said, shaking him again.

“Dejame dormir!” Vaas groaned.

Sighing, he figured that he would pull something that Grant had done to him growing up and being in the same position. One too many mornings where Grant was supposed to wake him up and he had woken up screeching cause his brother pulled the same dick move.

Making air pinches with his free hand, he moved Vaas’ arm with the other and lifted it up and away from his chest and-

Huh?

Underneath Vaas’ pectorals were pale scars, something that he did not think he saw before or bothered to remember. He shifted Vaas’ arm completely out of the way and prodded it with one finger gently, feeling the well healed skin that was just as feverish as the rest of him. Vaas muttered something about his mother and a horse as he got the man on his back.

Weird, Vaas did not seem like the kind of guy to get some sort of lung surgery. Maybe something with his pectorals? Vaas, while abusing drugs, cigars and alcohol did not seem the type to just get sick…oh.

…Oh.

Lisa had a cousin named Landen. One hot summer day at her folks’ house, Landen had taken off his shirt and had the same scars on his chest. When he asked about him later with Lisa, and she had explained about how Landen was not always Landen, but that was how he wanted to live. He just shrugged it off, figuring that it did not bother him much and not really caring who someone lived with how he lived on the edge.

God, the shit Vaas probably had to deal with, with _that_ hanging over him. Shit… he almost felt sorry for him, but knew better. Vaas did not want pity and did not need it.

“Hey! Unless you want to miss out on that shit you call coffee, you better get up!” He yelled, going through Vaas’ room to find something for Vaas to wear. Eventually he found a ripped up red shirt and threw it at Vaas face, startling the man awake and making him cuss up a storm as he tried to get the shirt off his face. After a moment, Vaas’ head popped up through the collar and he kept cussing as he got his arms through the arm holes.

“Motherfucker,” Vaas grumbled.

“After knowing that Citra came out of that, if I had the choice of a used mango and your mother, I’d go with the mango,” He snorted, throwing a slightly foul smelling shirt at Vaas.

That got a rather colorful string of Spanish thrown at him along with the shirt, dodging it with a quick duck and then dashing out of the house with the lazy dog at the door letting out a slow string of barks on his heels. 

He barely made it to the camp when a solid weight hit his back and a pair of stringy but strong arms wrapped around his body and took them both down. Thankfully into the sand, but his teeth still rattled in his jaw when it struck the ground as Vaas straddled his back and laughed for his victory.

“Look, I caught Goggles!” Vaas yelled for the entire camp to hear as a few stopped to laugh at them.

“You caught something,” He grunted, fighting the raw strength in Vaas’ thighs.

* * *

The day was sort of slow, since they had captured some tourists just the other day and were ‘processing’ them now. Other camps did the processing if it were smaller groups, with Vaas’ camp taking it on for larger groups because of the number of men in his camps. The group that they had caught was decently sized, so some went to other camps and some came to Vaas’ camp.

He drank some beer with Carlos as Vaas did the ‘processing’, waiting to take care of the dead bodies as soon as Vaas was done.

It looked like… an old guy, an older woman, two co-ed looking daughters and a teenage boy. 

The old guy kept running his goddamn mouth, telling everyone there that they were do dead when ‘his people’ came for him and that he had a lot of money and would use it to make their lives miserable. The lady just stood there with perfectly aged grace and dignity while the man made a fool of himself. The girls leaned against each other and whimpered and the boy just sniffled and cried quietly.

“Shut up! SHUT UP!” Vaas screamed, getting into the man’s face and smashing their foreheads together, having to stand a bit on his toes to make up the height difference, “Shut up, motherfucker!”

“I will not!” The man said.

Vaas grinned broadly, looking so much like a Cheshire cat… and then back handed the man with a pistol. Bleeding out his nose and mouth, the man fell with a heavy thud as the girls screamed and the woman and boy only flinched.

“Try talking with those broken fucking teeth, motherfucker!” Vaas yelled.

Vaas cussed him out as the man whimpered and sniffled on the ground, before kicking him hard in the stomach and then going over to the lady.

“Now you, I like,” Vaas said, grabbing her shoulders and grinning at her, “Nice, quiet, dignified.”

“When you have a man like that for your husband for over three decades, you learn,” She said evenly and with a great deal of pride.

Carlos made a hand motion at him.

“Eh… twenty,” He said.

“You look like a woman who knows money,” Vaas started.

“If you are looking for a ransom, you need only question my daughter, her number is in the pearl and sequin wallet you procured off my person,” The woman said, “She can gladly get you a neat sum for my person will little fuss.”

“Cooperative!” Vaas almost giggled.

“For my husband though, you will probably get a dirty penny,” She said, “My dear, sweet daughter couldn’t care to bother for more with the man.”

“Oh?” Vaas grinned, lifting up the pistol and tap, tap, tapping it against the corner of his mouth, “Are you saying something? Couldn’t quite get the subtly of it.”

“He’s better off dead or sold to someone with an age fetish,” The woman said.

Vaas cackled at that, clearly amused and entertained by this woman.

“Alright, fifty,” He said as Carlos grinned sideways at him.

“Alright! Amigo, you hear that? Your wife just sold you, congrats!” Vaas said, ducking down to get in the man’s face.

“L-Lilly?” The man whimpered, clutching at his bleeding mouth as gore and teeth fell between his fingers.

“Goodbye, Richard,” The woman said as Vaas motioned for some guys to come get the man and drag him screaming and yelling away.

“Now, who’s this?” He asked, shoving a pistol into one of the crying girl’s bleached hair.

Found out that the girls were not the daughters but in fact from the man’s work place. After some scaring on Vaas’ part, he gestured for his men to take them both away before approaching the way. Probably sold on the market to whatever pervert wanted some pretty girls to use. The boy, after nothing could be pried from him other then the woman saying that he was her grandson, got put with the woman in waiting for a ransom. Vaas’ men took them to the cells before walking over as he handed Carlos fifty bucks.

“What’s that?” Vaas asked, snatching his beer and drinking it down in one gulp.

“I made a bet that the guy would run his lip and get shot, Carlos made a bet that the wife would sell him out,” He explained as he took a snickering Carlos’ beer from him as he pocketed his ill gotten money.

“No respect!” Vaas almost whined, tossing the empty bottle over his shoulder.

Carlos yanked his beer back and downed it before it could get stolen again, leaving him without a drink and most of a long, hot day ahead of him.

“We probably need to go take care of any rejects that the others took care of,” He said.

“Let them get wrapped first, amigo!” Vaas said, smacking his arm.

“So we have some time to kill…” He said.

Carlos made a motion.

“Yeah, we can go hunting,” He said.

“Nah, Hoyt is coming around later and I need to be here,” Vaas sighed, sounding tired.

He patted Vaas’ shoulder, knowing that if anyone did not like dealing with the man it was Vaas. Carlos and he could get out of it since they were more or less faceless workers in Hoyt’s eyes, but Vaas was the main boss here at his camp and had to report directly to the slimy bastard. Sure, Vaas never showed it, but he knew that deep down Hoyt stirred some dark and gruesome emotions in Vaas, mostly fear and anger. He knew that if Vaas was present with just the right situation, that Vaas would gut Hoyt and wear his intestines like a gory fashionable scarf, but right now whenever the asshole was around, Vaas seemed to escape a bit into himself mostly. No wonder he never looked forward to a checkup from the asshole.

“I’ll get some fish for you while we’re out,” He said, knocking shoulders with the grumpy pirate, “You like tuna, right?”

“I need something better then fish after meeting with the big boss man, hijo de puta,” Vaas snorted, punching him back.

“We’ll trade food and I’ll get that pot you like from the camp over,” He said before nudging Carlos forward as a devious thought entered his mind, “Have fun with Hoyt, puta.”

“Vete a la mierda, imbecile inutil!” Vaas yelled after them.

* * *

Hunting with a rifle was impractical for hunting, too loud and too messy. His dusty rifle only kept gathering dust as he used his machete to kill a few boars, two snakes, a few colorful birds, before going into the water and catching a few fish from a river and stacking them all in the back of the jeep. Carlos, who actually had some wicked bow skills, snagged a couple of more birds and a few more boars and added them to the pile before taking the wheel and driving to the camp a couple miles away, taking it nice and easy as they went.

“Want to miss Hoyt that much?” He joked, already knowing the answer.

Carlos blew him a raspberry and kept driving, bobbing his head with the radio.

Yeah, he did not want to meet the bastard that made Vaas look positively cuddly in comparison. Not to mention, the man was the one that smashed a teenage Carlos’ throat with the butt of a gun he was carrying because it struck his fancy. Carlos was silent because of the jackass, Vaas was filled to the brim with a disgusting rainbow of drugs indirectly because of Hoyt, his face was hidden because of the man and the anger he stoked in the pirates that he lived among. They all had their reason for hating the bastard, but they all had their own fear of the fucking jackass.

Hoyt was on his list of people to die, right underneath that bitch Citra and Grant if his brother could not have his senses beat back into him.

The next camp was just a handful of buildings and a few pirates wearing Vaas’ red on them. It was more of a smaller camp meant for runners that did their rounds around the island, so it was more or a way-station then anything. Ever glad for freshly hunted food since they often relied on rations and dried foods, they traded a few things of ammo, a thing of the weed that Vaas liked, a couple things taken off reject slaves that no one else wanted, and after some bargaining, he got himself some worn out jeans that were cleaner than the ones that he was wearing. To be honest, it was a steal for like half of their prized hunt, but maybe the way-stations were under resourced again, he made a note to tell Vaas about it.

With a few goodbyes, they crept back home just as the sun was setting and it started to cool down a bit, parking away from camp and coming back with their goods to see everyone buckling down for the night or getting ready for night patrol. Carlos got a few guys to help unload everything and he took the thing of pot to go find Vaas.

When he got closer to the building, he heard that the shorter man was throwing shit in his house, screaming half gibberish in his rage as he put things through windows and through some of the walls. He ducked to avoid getting a camera thrown as he came in as the lazy dog snored loudly away. Lucky Dutch, Vaas would not hurt the dog even in a complete fit of maniacal rage, he on the other hand still needed to duck. Vaas stood in the middle of a recently cleared out room, glaring and huffing and puffing as he practically steamed from his rage.

He silently held up the promised weed and Vaas spat something out before falling into a box of something and crushing it with his ass. He went over to where he knew Vaas kept the weed things and got a few jointed rolled up before leaving some left over for Vaas to burn at his leisure when he needed it. Taking the joints over to the grumpy man, he popped one into his mouth and offered one to Vaas before sitting on the floor next to the box. Patting his pockets procured a lighter, flicking it a few times got a flame, and with the flame he lit up his own joint before lighting Vaas’ and snapping the lighter shut to snuff the flame out.

He listened to Vaas rage between deep inhales of the Mary Jane. Vaas cursed everything that he seemed able to think of. He cursed his mother and his father, his sister, Hoyt, Buck, Grant, him, the pirates, the animals, some people that he did not know. When the drugs started trickling into his system, his anger softened with both the venting and the heavy stench of stinkweed.

Vaas dug into anyone that he had a real beef with. He brutally ripped into his sister for everything she had done to him, slipping into Spanish for most of it. He dug into Hoyt, muttering most of it as though still wary of prying ears. He dug into his crew for their fuck ups, though still with a fondness that told that Vaas still cared for each and every one of them. Buck he did not offer much other than to basically spit on the fucking pervert’s spiritual grave. Vaas did not have a diatribe against him, other than a few strangely fond colorful names in Spanish.

After his second joint, Vaas looked more tired and stoned than anything else. He only had one and left the rest for Vaas to smoke, waiting for Vaas to wear himself out with his anger before snubbing his single joint and getting up to get some sleep. Had to be at least three in the morning anyway and he needed the few winks of sleep that he would get before his internal clock fucked him over.

“Jason,” Vaas said.

“Yeah?” He asked.

He was not used to Vaas using his real name. They had both dumped it when he had joined the pirates with that explosion. It was an alien word, like most of the Spanish that Vaas used. It might have well been a word from a completely different language, that was how foreign it sounded in his ears and in Vaas’ mouth.

“I got beds, stay the night,” Vaas said, making it sound like a weak suggestion rather than command that he probably wanted.

“…You’re going soft,” He said.

“Fuck you,” Vaas drawled out.

“Well you know what they say about sex while stoned out,” He chuckled.

Vaas cussed him out in Spanish as he helped the wobbly, stoned man stand, leaning against him as he was leaned against as they went to go find a place to sleep.

* * *

Citra lazily dragged her fingers through Grant’s shaggy hair, smiling as her warrior turned to look at her with complete and utter adoration. But most importantly, with complete and utter obedience.

“Mi guerrera,” She purred “Soon… soon you will be ready…”

“To take out my brother?” Grant asked, his voice clear of regrets or doubts of anything that might have been affection for the brother that betrayed him.

“To take out both our brothers, who have fallen from the way of the warrior,” Citra purred, dragging her fingers across Grant’s bare chest, marked with Tatau and scars.

“Of course,” Grant pledged “I’ll slaughter them like the pirates that they act like.”

“Mi guerrera,” She purred “Slaughter them like dogs.”


	3. Brother, oh Brother

He woke up drooling into Vaas’ Mohawk and almost half draped on the smaller man.

Judging by the harsh light coming through the window and the thick and the sticky heat that stuck to his skin, it was already high noonish. The sluggishness in his mind and the stiffness of his body only seemed to confirm it. He moved just slightly, as not to disturb Vaas, trying to work sleep stiffness out of his limbs. Putting the two things together and it probably meant that they were a lot more stoned then he had originally thought…

What happened last night?

He remembered helping Vaas up and then his memory trailed off into darkness. He remembered nothing, not even how he ended up spooning/laying on Vaas and drooling into his Mohawk. His arm was draped over Vaas in a rather friendly manner, curled over his thinner torso and his fingers brushing against the arms Vaas had tucked against his chest. One leg was thrown over Vaas’ and forcing his thinner legs between his own. He actually wondered how in the hell Vaas was comfortable with this awkward arrangement.

“Ouch,” He groaned, dragging himself off of Vaas and rubbing his burning eyes.

Vaas muttered something, curling in on himself as though he were cold despite the heat already settling in for the day. Then again for a native of the islands, Vaas was probably used to the thick and wet heat. He patted Vaas’ side to start the probably long process of waking his boss up and sat up, scratching his fingers through his hair and rubbing his weirdly numb face. Getting some blood flowing helped the stiffness a bit and helped with the headache a very small bit, but figured that some fresh air, food and caffeine would really do him some good.

“Vaas, Vaas!” He said, smacking Vaas’ foot until the man groaned, “Wake up, it’s late.”

“Suck my dick,” Vaas muttered.

“If it’ll get you up and some coffee in my hand, drop trou and I’ll do it now,” He deadpanned, too many months staying with the pirates had ripped out his fragile masculinity.

“Don’t taunt me with a good time, hermano,” Vaas moaned.

“Then get up, asshole,” He said, smacking Vaas’ calf to rouse him further.

Eventually he crawled out of bed with Vaas following, grumbling and muttering and scratching at his face. There were bags underneath his eyes, probably like his own, and his eyes were terribly bloodshot. They both stank of weed, Vaas more so then usual, plus there was a patch of Vaas’ hair that stuck together with his sleeping drool. Generally? They both looked fucking awful and like they spent the night smoking weed and generally getting high, but, the fact that Vaas had been calmed down after a fit was still a miracle and there was nothing that food, caffeine and a eventual ocean swim could not clean up.

Together they walked to the main camp, finding a few pirates lingering there, which really meant that they had slept in late if they were only see guard duty. 

The light work load meant the every cushiony job of guard duty was available for grabs. Guard duty was just some glorified standing around and bull-shiting around without getting yelled at. Not that anyone was complaining. Guard duty meant that they actually had people again instead of staking work on top of work until everyone was stressed and well… overworked like it had apparently been when he was slaughtering pirates for hyped up fun.

Eventually they found the greasy bits of someone’s left over breakfast and devoured that, the munchies from while they were getting stoned rearing its ugly head. After raiding a few trees for some fresh mangos and bananas and slurping down a pot of coffee abomination between them, they wondered around joking with each other until they found Carlos on the beach with a cold beer.

“Carlos! You asshole!” Vaas called as they stomped through the sand to get to him.

Carlos looked up and grinned at them, motioning towards the other beers in the sand, dripping with delicious coldness that made him rip the top off of one and suck it down like it did not burn like rat piss and paint thinner. The burn of the alcohol barely fazed him so much as the perfect coldness that ran down his throat and hit his still hungry belly. When he had drunk it down to the last drop, he unabashedly let out a pleasured moan and sank into the silky white sand despite the heat.

“Don’t fucking jizz yourself, hermano,” Vaas said, throwing sand at him.

“Cold beer and a great view, what’s not to enjoy?” He sighed.

“Hear that Carlos, Jason thinks we’re fucking good looking,” Vaas laughed.

“Eh, Carlos isn’t that bad,” He chuckled, grinning when Vaas threw another handful of sand at him and called him something that involved a horse and a sex worker.

Carlos made a few hand signs and tugged at his shirt.

“Yeah, it’s fucking hot,” Vaas said before taking a few swigs of his beer, his throat bobbing with the motion. 

It took him a moment to realize that he had never noticed that Vaas never had an Adam’s apple. Then again with Vaas he always had a habit of being drawn to his eyes, the way that they changed colors in lights and with extreme mood swings. Or the lean and stronger frame made from a hard life and the training of a killer and hunter, especially his nice shoulders. Or that charismatic mouth, stretching into friendly grins or sadistic snarls. Then again to be fair, Adam's Apples were hardly ever noticeable until they stuck out too far and then you had a hillbilly neck.

Carlos yanked his shirt off and casually tossed it behind himself. He was sweating heavily, spattered with thick layer of wetness wherever his shirt had not absorbed the sweat. It seemed that even the natives were bothered by this watery heat.

He followed suit and pried his off, the soaked fabric uncomfortable to pull off the pale-ish skin that it stuck too. There was a moment that his soaked shirt caught his bandanna and he had to fight with it not to slip the damned thing off. While he was with only Vaas and Carlos, there were still the guards hanging around the camp, so he needed to get keep it on and keep his identity a secret still. After a brief struggle, he got it off and tossed it into the sand with a ‘plop’. Vaas snorted at their stripping, but did not take his shirt off. Sweat was dripping off his temples.

“Vaas, wouldn’t you be more comfortable?” He offered.

“Fuck you, motherfucker,” Vaas said venomously.

“Okay, okay,” He said soothingly, holding up his hands, “Sorry.”

After a long moment, Vaas took his shirt off too. The pirate clicked his tongue in an annoyed fashion, leaning back in the white sand and showing off his chest. He showed off all the lean muscles, all the scars, the dusting of chest hair and the scars that almost seemed white against his dark skin. He figured that Vaas would be proud of them, considering his personality but then again… he could only think of all the things people could have done to the man for such a thing.

Especially with abusive fuck-holes like Citra and Hoyt in his life…

“Swimming,” He suddenly said.

Carlos made a hand motion and Vaas just looked at him, rim of the bottle pressed against his lips.

“It’s hot as fuck and you don’t think swimming is a good idea?” He almost snorted.

Carlos looked at the waters and frowned, Vaas just drank his beer.

“Fine, roast here!” He said, getting up and kicking out of his boots and socks, abandoning his bandana with his things before trudging out into the crystal clear waters.

The water was unfortunately lukewarm in the shallows, but the deeper he went the cooler the water became. When he was up to his waist, the water was cold to his knees and he felt the heat lessen a bit. He splashed some water on his upper half and soaked his hair in it, slicking it to his scalp with blissful coolness. A few cuts and nicks on his hands burned like hellfire with the sea salt in the water and the sand that he had kicked up sloshing through the water.

“Nice view!”

He threw a thumbs-up at Vaas who was laughing from the beach, scrubbing the water into his skin and thinking about if this counted as a bath or not. The water sure was coming off miscolored…

A splash of water hit the back of his head. Turning around, he saw a slyly grinning Carlos standing there, tongue out between his teeth. It seemed that the man had come out to play with him.

“You’re on!” He grinned back.

* * *

“Hermano!”

He looked up from the busted knuckle that he was trying to stitch together.

Unofficially, he had become one of the people in the camp to go to when the pirates needed a dirty and quick fix to a wound.

He guessed that so many times resetting his own bones, stitching bullet wounds and just fixing himself after fighting and killing pirates that he just sort of built up a small knowledge base of what to do with simple stuff like that. He guessed since he first offered to do the small stuff that people have been slowly at least trusting him with that stuff, though it might have been purely out of lack of anyone else able to do it.

Sure, Vaas had this doctor collared and trapped inside a small thrown together infirmary in the middle of camp, but for some reason it took special permission from Vaas to even go anywhere near the building. Besides the small stuff was really nothing to get a doctor about when he was around. So if someone needed something quickly fixed, he was one of people that the pirates could go see, regardless of how the other pirates still sort of leered at him with heavy suspicion. 

Vaas was waiting for him, standing next to Carlos and a heavily armed man and woman.

“Coming boss!” He called back.

He finished the stitching without getting sloppy, managing to carefully cut the thread with his teeth and keeping his lower face hidden, before patting the pirate’s shoulder and letting them go do their own thing. Leaving the thread and bloodied needle behind, he dusted off his sandy knees and went to see what Vaas needed.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Some Rakyat have been pretty fucking ballsy,” Vaas said, “Attacking our lines and shit. We’re going to go show them motherfuckers that we aren’t to be fucked with.”

“Okay,” He said.

It had been getting rather dull around the camp just doing the slave trader thing. Killing some people would help break the dull a bit. Not to mention, since both Denis and Grant aligned themselves with that bitch Citra… well he found it almost enjoyable to kill the Rakyat, seeing each dead one as a distant ‘Fuck you!’ to Citra.

Carlos got to drive the four of them. Since he carried his rifle on him, he got shotgun, with Vaas sitting between them, duel wielding handguns to shoot people at their sides. The two other pirates climbed in back with their various weaponry, prepared to be the heavy shooters. Carlos started up the engine, hearing the engine putter to life, and then the jerk as Carlos slammed down on the gas and took off.

“…Is her pretty American boy there?” He asked.

“Snow White or his older brother?” Vaas asked over the noise of the engine, “Cause you know Snow White is dead, hermano.”

“Older brother,” He said, trying to keep his voice level. For some reason, publicly getting himself corrected on wither or not 'Jason Broody' was alive seemed to put people to ease about his mysterious identity.

“No idea, amigo,” Vaas said.

Roughly an hour later of stiffly quiet driving later and they came onto a pirate camp that he was sure that he had been too at one point. Though it was hard to recognize with a few of the buildings on fire, jeeps crashed and off to the sides, dead pirates and dead Rakyat lying here and there. Camps were always comfy chaos but this was just general chaos.

“Come on, Goggles!” Vaas called, already jumping out of the jeep with his guns raised.

He got out, rifle in hands as he got it loaded with bullets ready to fire. As he calmly walked in, several Rakyat noticed. They screamed obscenities in Spanish as they came at their little group. His foot lashed out and caught one in the jaw, tossing him backwards as he aimed his rifle and blew the man’s brains out. Splattering blood and brains on the ground, he kicked the corpse aside before walking further in.

He heard Vaas screaming as he went out and started slaughtering, accented with the twangs of Carlos’ bow as he used his own skills to kill. He strayed away from the heavies that cleared most of the Rakyat as he took up his rifle and cleared out stragglers, sometimes shooting ones that were focused on Carlos or Vaas. Most of the time he was just shooting them in the head, killing them quickly and mostly clean, because he was not like Vaas and using his knife to make butchered meat out of them, or Carlos and seeing how many arrows he could put in a person before they died.

He still had some lingering humanity left…

“Grant! Grant!” A Rakyat cried as he took an arrow to the neck.

… _Grant?_

The sound of one of the heavy guns went silent and he turned around in time to see a familiar face distorted in rage coming at him, the body of one of the heavy pirates on the ground behind him. Hair lighter, skin more tanned, bare arms marked with Tatau and marred with countless battles but oh so familiar.

_His brother…_

A large and heavy machete came down as his rifle came up to protect his face with a heavy clang, body reacting to him being in danger even as his stupid brain kidded and stuttered on old memories that needed to die. His legs tightened and locked up as Grant started pushing down against him, almost as if he was trying to cut through his gun to get at him. He grunted as he was faced with the sheer force of Grant’s strength bearing down on him. Where was the army training? Where was the skill and tactics that Grant fought with? Because right now he was fighting like a crazed pirate.

“Die pirate!” Grant yelled, pushing harder against him.

He was strong, he worked almost every day and did manual labor for a living, but Grant was always bigger and broader than him, and he could feel the weight of Grant’s strength burn through his arms like hellfire.

_His brother was trying to kill him…_

He took a gamble and shuffled over to the side, Grant following him to keep him underneath his oppressive force. His eyes tore away from Grant’s angry face and looked around desperately for some backup. He heard Vaas’ distant screaming, but saw no sign of Carlos. Maybe he could break away…

TWANG!

Grant roared like a wounded beast, pulling away and stumbling away. There was an arrow jutting from one shoulder-blade. He took up his rifle and was more than ready to shoot Grant’s brains out-

_Pushing Grant out of the way of the bullet…_

Could he really kill his brother without even trying to get Citra’s claws out of his stupid fucking skull?

“Fuck, fuck!” Grant hissed, turning and stumbling away.

He watched him run, unwilling to press down on the trigger that he was fingering even as his body shook. He listened to Vaas screaming profanities and the sounds of Carlos’ bow spitting arrows and watched his brother crawl back to that bitch Citra.

* * *

She struck him across the cheek, busting the skin open. Grant gritted his teeth but let the blood flow down his face, obedient in the face pf punishment.

“You will not fail again,” She hissed like the snake she was.


	4. Weed, booze, trust and a dashing of romance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Drug use/misuse, alcohol use/abuse, minor gore
> 
> Here we start the slow burn Vasson, so I hope you pups enjoy
> 
> -Musey Six

There was only one survivor from their slaughter. Citra’s bitch on a leash, the American Grant, having gotten shot in the back with an arrow and managed to run away with his goddamn tail between his legs before he could have been killed. The rest of his ilk were slaughtered and their corpses dumped on the edges of their territory to be found. Most had Vaas’ red painted in colorful messages on their faces with their own blood, or carved into their death stilled screaming faces.

No one knew that he had confronted Grant, because Carlos has just been shooting blindly, so Vaas could not tear into him for hesitating. Vaas would have beaten the shit out of him had he known that he hesitated, and he could not really blame anyone but himself. Did he hesitate because he hoped that he could save Grant from Citra? Was he hoping that fear and terror would let his throat go so he could talk to the man? Did Grant even know that he was alive? Or did Citra tell him that he was alive and with Vaas, living as a pirate?

Too many questions swirled around in his head and he almost felt dizzy.

Work picked up the day after the attack, so he managed to at least keep his shaking hands busy.

People get caught roaming the island, people get turned into slaves, slaves get processed, rejects get wrapped up tight and dumped at the spot, waiting for ransoms to pay off, letting some people go home and selling some as slaves anyway. Long hours of watching Vaas scare the piss out of people, of lending a hand wrapping up the shot up corpses of the rejects, or taking the bodies out to the dump sites. The question still bothered him more than the heat that prickled his skin and made him sweat bullets that he normally put into brains.

Late nights smoking weed with Vaas because he was blanking on everything, listening to the man tell him wild stories of the times before he showed up. Listening to the man sometimes trail off into honeyed Spanish that sounded so good in his ears. Listening to the man laugh while stoned out of his mind, his own stoned mind finding it hilarious as well and laughing until his eyes teared up. Vaas sometimes falling on him as he rushed up to grab something to show him, laughing as they could not coordinate their limbs to get untangled and just laying like that, laughing themselves to tears and not really caring that Vaas was laying on him.

More than once he woke up cuddled up against the man, hangover something terrible, with Vaas groaning about leaving him cold. He stopped caring about it after the third time. How gave a fuck? Nothing happened, they were friends, they were stoned and it was comfortable being curled around the top predator on the island. Kept his mind from overloading and thinking Grant was around every corner ready to scream ‘Traitor!’ at him.

Eventually, he broke it Vaas that he saw Grant during that night. It was killing him too much keeping it too himself. Vaas was… surprisingly supportive.

“I’m going to make the grand sweeping guess that he wasn’t a prick all the time?” Vaas said, dragging on a cig that they were sharing. It was this pack that they pulled off a reject, this fancy brand that smelled sweet and breathed in sweeter while giving a slight, euphoric sensation. Probably lined with fancy weed.

“Yeah, he was… actually a really cool older brother,” He said, taking the offered cig and taking in a sweet lungful of the mango scented and flavored smoke before handing it back. “He was there for me as I just kinda… drifted. He bailed me out of some sticky situations sometimes too, helped me with others. He also introduced me to my former fiancé believe it or not.”

“But he’s a dick now,” Vaas said, blowing out smoke into a fancy ring of smoke by puckering his mouth just right. One day he would be able to blow rings like a fat cat pirate king too. “But there were times that he wasn’t, mi hermano.”

“Yeah… I mean I’ll kill him if it comes down to it… but I’m kinda hoping that I can rip Citra’s nails out of his fucking sex soaked brain,” He said, licking at the fruit flavor soaking his lips “If I can’t, I’ll fucking kill him, but if I can though… I don’t know, I’d like to try.”

“Good fucking luck,” Vaas snorted, handing the cig back, “With how many people Citra’s fucked at this point, getting away from that pussy is gonna be hard.”

“…She really did that to you?” He asked, sucking in the sweet smoke.

“Yeah,” Vaas sighed.

“I’ll stab her in her fucking lying mouth first,” He said, blowing smoke out like a demon like his asshole brother had taught him years ago. Smoke blowing from between his bared teeth and out his flared nostrils. “And then tear down to the fucking thing she’s used for nothing but getting people on her side.”

“Stop, I get only get so erect,” Vaas laughed.

He laughed at that, the weed lined cig making him laugh even harder when Vaas started laughing with him.

* * *

“Hey, Goggles,”

Vaas had him and Carlos skinning mangos and carving out their cores for this huge barbeque that he wanted to happen, just a few days after their talk over fancy cigs. While they were getting the fruit to ice and use later, just a foot away there were four people getting the meat sliced up, seasoned and ready to be put on ice to save as well.

The particular person that called him he recognized as the heavy from their raid where he had seen Grant. A broad and tall woman, with biceps for the mouth to water over, and sun bleached blonde hair and darkly tanned skin that suggested that she was not a native to the island. A thick ribbon lovingly curled around one of her biceps told onlookers ‘Amate il vostro famiglia’. Sounded vaguely Italian.

“Yeah?” He said, putting down his sticky and sweet knife and wiping his hands off on his pants, smearing more stains on the fabric.

“Got a guy that needs a broken leg set, and a gunshot wound treated,” The heavy said flatly, eyeing him hard. But he was used to it, people just did not trust someone who's face that you never saw and who's origins were kept hidden by your own boss. “Think you can handle it?”

“Yeah sure, get him on a table while I clean my hands,” He said.

Carlos bided him farewell with full hands as one of the pirates swapped out from the meat group to help him with the mangos. The heavy went off to get her friend and he found a jug of water and bit of degreaser to clean his hands as best he could before finding his next patient being held down on a table that normally held the quick grabs supplies that scouts and pirates that frequently bounced around camps used.

The scout, a scrawny teenager, put on a brave face as he carved up their pants to get at the broken leg while they held at a bloody patch on their side, lower and not needing immediate attention.

“What happened?” He asked as he took note of the bruising and the bump about mid calf.

“Those fucker of that whore warrior,” The teenager hissed as he prodded gently to find exactly where the bone was broken, “He came out of nowhere!”

“Her pretty American boy?” He asked stoically before fishing out his machete. The teenager went bugged eyed before he carefully switched his grip to pinching the blade between his fingers and pressing the handle against their mouth, “Bite down, this is gonna hurt like a bitch.”

The teenager took the handle into their mouth and bit down into the worn cloth but hard wood, clenching up as he grabbed the leg where he was going to grip.

“1, 2 and… 3!”

CRUCNH!

The teenager screamed behind the handle, face going red as he took the offered bandages and started tightly wrapping the bruised leg. He wrapped it as the teenager groaned behind the handle, eventually getting one of their friends to get him one of the dirty casts that the pirates kept around and getting it on his leg, stitching it up with the offered needle and thread before moving up to the kid’s side.

“Hold on,” The heavy said, running into camp and coming back a moment later with a bottle of rat piss rum and two pills that looked like the pain killers that Vaas popped on light days.

“Come on Kit, this will help,” The heavy said, prying the machete handle from their mouth, “Just down these suckers and you won’t feel your face for days.” Probably true if the kid was not yet abusing pills and drugs like the other pirates.

The kid, after a moment of letting out worrying sounds of pain, took the bottle, chugging half of it like it did not burn like hell water, popping the pills in their mouth and nursing the rest of the bottle as he pried their hand away from their side to look at the bullet wound. Looked like it had been stopped by a rather high placed gun holster, so he could pry the bullet out with his fingers rather than needing a knife or the long tweezers. Once the bullet was gently tugged out, he took some of the rat piss rum and trickled a bit before handing it back and taking up his needle and thread.

Ten stitches later and a wrapping of bandages and Kit was more than good and off their rocker because the alcohol and pills had kicked in. The heavy gently picked up their scrawny hide and started carrying them towards the bunker. The two friends of theirs clamped him on the back and thanked him through garbled English, making him guess one was a native and the other Russian.

Good deed done for the day, he went to clean his hands off and then rejoin Carlos just in time for Vaas to have just dropped off a thing of pineapples, papaya and surprisingly dragon fruit.

“I didn’t think that dragon-fruit was native to the island,” He mused as he admired the strange, scaly fruit.

Carlos made a couple of hand signs and it took him a moment to decipher.

“The heavy?” He asked as he took up his knife again.

Carlos nodded and signed something else.

“Her name is Alessandra?” He asked.

Once again, Carlos nodded before signing something else.

“…Oh! Kit is her kid? Uh, didn’t seem like they looked like they were related,” He said as he started shucking fruit skin.

Carlos signed something else that had his brow crinkling in thought.

“God, is she really protective of her kid? Does that mean she trusts me?” He asked.

Here Carlos shrugged, going back to carving up the mangos he de-skinned while he mulled it over for a second.

Maybe… the pirates trusted him just a bit more? He certainly hoped so…

* * *

That night the pirates made a thing out of the food. While skewers of meat and fruit sizzled on huge pits of alcohol and flammable liquid fed flames, they danced, laughed and rough housed as booze and drugs ran freely. He watched as Carlos spent most of the night getting twirled between this one guy with a scarred nose and pretty green eyes and this dark, dark skinned girl with a frizzy and fluffy hair. Looked like the happiest guy in the world between the two of them.

He saw Alessandra and Kit by the fire, looked like Kit was toughing it out to be with everyone and Alessandra was just there to support them. One time their eyes met and she offered him a small but genuine smirk and a respectful nod of her head. Kit just waved when they met eyes, but looked like they were doing better.

“Hey goggles!”

Vaas plopped down on the log that he was sitting on, close enough to not get called a loner or buzz kill, but not get close enough to get drawn into the wilder festivities.

A strong and rather warm arm wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him closer until he was pressed flush against Vaas’ side. Wow he was warm, but like, extremely pleasantly warm, or maybe the night just seemed cold and lonely because he was being antisocial.

“Enjoy your barbeque?” He chuckled, nodding towards the stick with charred meat and fruit that Vaas was white knuckling in his free hand.

“You bet your pretty white boy ass I am hermano!” Vaas grinned before reaching over and sucking down part of the cabob.

Vaas smelled faintly of weed and gunpowder, but mostly salty sweat and of the food cooking. He smelled pretty nice, even if months ago he himself would have turned his nose up at it, especially if coming off of Vaas.

“Heard you helped Alessie out with her brat,” Vaas said after he had chewed, “She don’t let anyway help out her brat.”

“Yeah, Carlos told me too…” He said before reaching over and stealing a bit of deliciously greasy and seared mango from Vaas’ cabob and popping it into his mouth, savoring the delicious taste on his tongue.

“You got the respect of my boys, girls and other pirates,” Vaas grinned all cat like at him, not bothered by the food theft, “That’s not fucking easy to get, and I should fucking know.”

“I try,” He said, munching away and licking his fingers, “I also do doctor shit, so that helps.”

“And that’s why I love you, Jason,” Vaas smirked “You’re my kind of guy.”

He was so used to Vaas’ sideways flirty ways with him when he was in a good mood that he did not know if Vaas was dropping hints or just in a really good mood. For some reason, he could not be bothered either way.

“Yep, you’re my kinda guy too, Vaas,” He said back before stealing a chunk of steak off the cabob and eating that too, savoring the flavors of the seasoned meat and the juices from the seared fruit.

“Hey, hey! This is mine, get your fucking own!” Vaas laughed, stretching his arm out to get it out of his reach.

He tried to reach for it anyway, hungry and wanting to rough house with the shorter man. After a brief struggle, Vaas ended up flat on his back, laughing as the cabob was still stretched just out of his reach.

“Quit reaching for my meat stick!” Vaas laughed loudly, trying to get him to stop through vulgarity.

“Ooh, Vaas,” He faked moaned, still reaching for it “But I want it so bad. So thick and juicy I just want to put it into my mouth.”

“Asshole motherfucker!” Vaas laughed, giving up.

In the end he got up to get Vaas another one, eating with the man and bullshitting around with him some before going back to his little nest and getting high on stinkweed and some rather tasty rum that Vaas had stashed away. High on a good time, weed and alcohol, he fell into a giggling tangle with Vaas, getting a hicky when he tried to playfully smother the man, only laughing more as he crushed the man to his chest and nuzzled into the hair that stank of weed and guns.

That was how he slept.


	5. Dance boy, dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Heated kissing, grinding
> 
> Here we go

Vaas needed him to go ‘baiting’.

Baiting was when he went towards less pirate populated islands to hunt for tourists and lure them to the island. Normally they had some pirates that could fake flashy accents and had pleasant faces to do it, natural charisma and all that so they could lure loaded twenty somethings into the trap. But the guys that normally did it were out harassing Citra and her dogs because they were also the quickest and lightest guys out there.

Vaas normally hated sending him out, spitting and seething as he cleaned himself up and dressed up in nightclub clothing to look like a roughed up native to the island looking for a good time. He would be grumpy and snippy and normally refused to talk to him before he left and then was practically clingy and borderline affectionate when he came back, trying to keep him in the camp as long as he could.

This was a whole new level.

Vaas was throwing shit like when he was murderously mad. His colorful Spanish rang through the camp as he casually threw anything that he could get his hands on. Sometimes he quieted down to rush up to any pirate and ask if they could take the job only to get angrier when they told him they were busy with other duties. He more than once heard Vaas’ gun go off as he shot something. More than once he threw bottles of rat piss and more than once something went flying across the ground because he kicked it as hard as he could.

“Vaas, Vaas!” He called over the man’s screaming as he caught him on the edge of camp “Vaas! What’s wrong? Do you not want me to go?”

“Of course I don’t want you to fucking go!” Vaas snarled, turning on his heel and glaring, though he had a feeling that it was not at him “All those fucking assholes crawling all over you! You come home smelling like those rich assholes! You fucking come back smelling like bitches’ perfumes and guys’ cologne and I FUCKING HATE!”

Baiting sometimes required a little more elbow grease then just charismatic words. More than once he had gotten flirty and frisky to get tourists to come to the island, grabbing hips and asses, getting close enough to kiss to lay it on thick to convince them. He remembered one time a girl gave him a hickie cause she thought he was coming on to her, left a nasty bruise on his neck and a smear of dark purple lipstick that took three days to finally come off. Vaas actually punched him for that one. So yeah, he had come home smelling like the girls he had gotten frisky with, or the guys that he had toyed with, their smells clinging to him stubbornly.

“Vaas, Vaas,” He said calmly, locking his knees on instinct to keep himself from shaking.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Vaas yelled, eyes slitting as his face cracked open enough to pour out that much noise.

So he did, remaining standing still as Vaas spat venomous words at the ground, at the sky, at the trees, at the buildings, at him, at the ocean in the distance and even looking down to scream at his hands. His face was tinted red with racing blood and his knuckles were bleeding from punching something.

“Vaas, can I look at your hands please?” He asked softly “You’re bleeding man.”

Vaas flipped him the bird, screaming something rather cutting in Spanish.

“Come on Vaas, you don’t want abscesses again,” He said “You remember when you got the nasty abscess on your arm? How painful and gross that was? Let me look at your hands, please Vaas.”

Vaas turned to glare at him, opening his mouth to scream again… only to huff instead. He held out his hands, cocking his head to glare at him. With the open invitation, he cautiously came forward and took Vaas’ bandaged and rough hands in his own, bringing up the bleeding knuckles so he could see them clearly through his goggles. Through the tinted view, he saw the splinters of some lightly colored wood in the bleeding flesh.

He took the meticulous time to pry out what splinters he could with his fingers. Luckily he had something that could be considered length to his nails and managed to pry most of the splinters out to spar Vaas some pain later. When his nails failed, he flipped his bandana up and used his teeth and mouth to pry the splinters out and suck them out where they were buried deep. Vaas’ blood tasted smoky on his tongue, staining and saturating his mouth as he spat out blood and splinters.

To bind the busted flesh, he ended up ripping up the edge of his shirt, wrapping Vaas’ hand like one would wrap a fighter’s fist, and neatly tucking it in at the wrist to keep it secure.

“Making me patch you up,” He playfully gruffed.

Vaas’ newly bound hands came up and caught his face, pulling his head down to look into those eyes that always seemed to memorize him.

“I hate the smell of those bastards on you,” He growled “You don’t smell like you. You smell…Like her.”

Ah, it was because of that. He remembered the stink of perfume that Citra had left on him their few times together. Citra, from when she fucked with Vaas mentally and physically, probably left the same stench on him and scarred him for life. He would not be surprised if Vaas could ever smell a bottled scent and not immediately be afraid or angry.

“…Vaas…why don’t you come?”

* * *

It had taken a long scrub in the ocean and looking through the pile of the reject’s former possessions for a decent set of clean clothing, but he almost looked like that pretty American boy that he had been when he first came to the islands. The scars on his face, the distinct lightening of his hair and the stubborn tan said otherwise, but for the most part he looked like an American in his designer t-shirt and cargo pants as he nursed a glass of some fruit concoction curtsey of the bartender.

As it turned out, most of the employees on the inner islands knew about the pirates and were either employed by them, or turned a blind eye to their workings. The bartender had taken one look at him and Vaas and just nodded before getting a girl in a shimmering, proactive number with a few drinks on the house over to them.

Vaas took one sniff of his drink and handed it over before calling for a bottle of the hard stuff. Now he was shooting shots of black spiced rum like it did not burn like hell water. He might have been edgy from the smells, the tourists around them, or uncomfortable with what he was wearing, he did not know.

“Hey Vaas, you look good,” He said over the thrum of the music.

In truth, they had to dress the man down in order to make him not stick out like a sore thumb. Took the jewelry, useless bandages, bands, rings and other things off before throwing a plain black t-shirt and baggy jeans on him. In truth, Vaas almost did not look like Vaas in the simple get-up, but the man had agreed to come along, so he really did not have much of a choice.

A few drinks in and he spotted a group that looked good. They were a group of two guys and two girls, with the guys wearing expensive outdoors shoes, pants and flashy designer shirts and the girls casually wearing gemstones and diamonds. He had no idea if Vaas was actually out baiting with him, so he took his drink and casually made his way over close to them.

It took only a couple minutes before one of the girls took notice and managed to talk her friends in letting him sit with them. The girl pressed herself up against his side as he was plopped down on the couch, grinning softly as he was gushed over the beat of the music.

The group got interested as they took him in. Tanned skin, scars on his face and large ones at that, the sun brightened hair, the muscularity to his arms and his work worn hands. They asked if he was a local or an American living on the islands, about the scars on his face, about his hands, if he was single or not. When he casually mentioned being single, he could not help but notice the first girl get all hyped up about it, leaning against him further.

The other girl took off with one of the guys, saying that they were getting drinks and would be back. The girl started asking him about where he lived and all that jazz. So he told her, he lived with a few friends on an island on the edge of the cluster, free to do whatever the hell they wanted because no one was there. She casually asked him what all that entailed, red manicured fingertips circling his chest more than suggestively.

He told her about snorkeling, sightseeing, driving their jeeps wherever, staying up and partying all night if they wanted, sleeping in until noon if they wanted, walking around buck-ass naked if they wanted too. The girl giggled at that, scratching his chest through his shirt playfully.

The guy looked like he was about to ask something when Vaas finally made his way over. The stagger to his step suggested that he had downed his vodka and it was hitting him hard. The shorter man sat down next to him, hip to hip, smiling dopey like at him and the tourists.

“Hey, my friend Vaas!” He said over the music “I was just telling these guys about our little island paradise. Wanna add anything?”

He saw something almost venomous pass over Vaas’ eyes, but it quickly passed when Vaas threw a charming smile at the two interested tourists.

“Prettiest damned thing out there, clear skies, white sand, clear waters,” Vaas said “Nice and hot all year round, even got fresh fruits and shit for barbeques.”

“OMG Vince, we have to get Tina and Markus to go!” The girl chimed.

The guy shrugged, looking nervous.

The two came back with more than a few drinks, willing to share once their friend started spewing about their little island. The girl, probably Tina, clung to her boy-toy Markus as she listened to her friend went on and on about the island. The other guy listened in, paying more attention to his drink.

That was when he felt fingers slid underneath his shirt.

“Vaas?” He mouthed, looking over at his drunken boss.

Said drunken boss was positively flushed, eyes bright and eager as he leaned in close enough for him to smell the rum on his breath.

“You’re so pretty, Jason,” Vaas rumbled.

“Hey Vaas, you okay man?” He asked.

“So pretty,” Vaas purred, nuzzling into his shoulder.

The girls started asking him questions again, and he was more the happy to answer every one that he could, trying to ignore the way that Vaas was nuzzling into his shoulder and the warm breath on his neck. He started smelling rum over the smell of the tourists and the night club. Some drunk part of his mind wanted the smell to drown out the alien smells of civilizations that made his stomach squirm uncomfortably.

Everything was going great, the tourists wanted to go to the island. They just wanted to get a couple drinks and would take the directions the next day. He tried a few half hearted arguments to get them to go that night, but appeared happy that they were agreeing to go, giving them the directions to the pirates that would be laying in ambush for them, promising them a great time.

That was when Vaas’ hand went from petting his stomach to trying to wriggle into his pants. Thankfully his shirt was a bit long for him and hid where the man’s hand was going as he struggled to get past the tightness of his belt.

“Vaas,” He hissed.

Vaas bit his shoulder, grinning slyly at him. His eyes were glazed over, completely smashed at this point and he wondered if Vaas was even conscious at this point. He knew his boss had tolerance for hard alcohol, so actually seeing him smashed and not really there was… new.

The hand trying to get into his pants stopped, and he foolishly thought that Vaas was done… that was of course before the drunk pirate climbed into his lap and straddle him.

“Oooh, I didn’t know you guys were like _that_ ,” Tina giggled.

“Drinks and a show, nice,” Markus laughed.

Well at least their audience was not assholes. Not that he really wanted Vaas in his lap, hands on his shoulders and grinning down at him like he was planning something brazen, ballsy and stupid all at once. He actually felt something akin to a blush hit his face.

Vaas grinded his crotch against his, direct and hard, so much that he felt the press hard against what was in Vaas’ boxers. He swallowed thickly from the stimulation and then bit his lip as Vaas started slowly grinding down against him, pressing his hips down and hard, in long strokes that tormented him slowly. He put his hands on Vaas’ side and stared up at him, trying to figure this behavior out.

Was this about that ‘ _I love you_ ’ yesterday?

Vaas kept grinding against him, grinning like a fox that had cornered the rabbit. The hands on his boss’ sides were losing fight and just holding on, feeling the lean muscle move underneath his hands as Vaas really worked his hips. He sucked in a breath as he felt something ticklish brush against his spine and felt blood rush downstairs. Vaas, drunkenly flushed or blushing he did not know, just grinned down at him.

“Estás tan jodidamente hermosa,” Vaas growled out.

White teeth came down and nipped his chin in a frisky way. He resisted the little voice in his head that said ‘bite back’ and just swallowed thickly as he felt his ears set fire.

“Te amo,” Vaas panted, pressing their crotches as tightly together as he could before it got painful and grinding quick and hard against each other.

He was getting hard underneath the stimuli, pressed up against the inside of his pants and getting painfully sensitive. He felt his balls shift in his underwear, tightening as he was edged closer and closer. His fingers were digging into Vaas’ shirt and into his sides, just trying to hold on because he was enjoying what he was doing. He hated it and loved it and wanted more of it and felt the small amount of alcohol burning away at the edges of everything tumbling around in his head.

“Whoo boy, shake that ass!”

He smelled rum and realized that Vaas was in his face again. A rum smelling mouth was almost brushing against his.

“Fóllame,” Vaas purred.

He god, he knew what that meant-

His hands found the sides of Vaas’ face and brought his head down so that he was no longer brushing mouth to mouth against that man’s wicked lips, but instead mashing them together until he could taste the rum still lingering in Vaas’ mouth, tangle tongues, slid along sharp and gritty teeth. 

Their grinding got frustrated, quick and jerky, desperate even. Vaas was biting his lower lip and tongue, getting close to drawing blood. They felt bruised and tender and sore and he only get letting out weak noises with each new bite. It stung so damned good-

Vaas suddenly pried away, leaving both their chins shiny with spit. Vaas swiveled and planted his ass hard in his lap. He let out a grunt from the impact, burying his face in the back of Vaas’ neck as he groaned.

“I just realized something! We got a couple of friends that are here, you can get a ride with them out to the islands!”

The pain faded in a moment, leaving him with Vaas’ ass pressed against his obvious erection. Figuring that it was the ass’ fault, he grabbed Vaas’ hips and grinded up against him, panting softly against the man’s sweaty skin.

He did not know what he said after that, just that the tourists eagerly scampered away. With them gone, Vaas grabbed his shirt with force and started pulling him away.

“Vaas?” He rasped, voice gravelly from arousal.

“I’m gonna take you back home, mi amante,” Vaas said “And then do the thing I’ve been waiting to do to you for months.”


	6. I think I love my boss?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Heavily implied Vasson, fluff

Carlos looked up at them as he came stumbling back to camp just as the sun was rising, the silent man sitting in the lonely little guard post that watched the Eastern entrance to the camp. 

He was huffing and puffing as he walked because the other pirates had taken the vehicle that he had gone out in, and carry an unconscious Vaas in his arms was a bit of weight to carry for a couple miles. He was lucky that he had gotten the boat ride that he did, else he would have been soaked in sea water _and_ tired then. 

Carlos dragged on his joint, cocking an eyebrow at them, the flicker of red from the end of his joint lighting up his coy smile because the happy dippy sun had yet to drag its ass out of bed yet. 

The silent man made a dirty hand motion that he did not need a book to decipher as he got closer and closer to the camp, joint hanging loosely off his grinning lips. He just glared, not in the mood to deal with anything after the night he had just had. He still had a raging hard on trying to poke through his pants, barely hidden by the looseness of his shirt.

“Chalk Vaas up for one bottle of rum and one bottle of vodka and some sketchy jelly-shots,” He said as he kept walking in, even as the silent man started breathlessly laughing at him “And he’s a fucking cock tease when he’s drunk.”

Carlos fell out of his chair and was flat out on his back in the dirt, laughing his mute ass off as he kept walking in.

“Keep laughing, you fucking bastard!” He yelled after him, not giving a damned if he woke anyone up at such an atrocious hour.

He still heard the distant wheezing of Carlos’ quiet laughter as he went deeper into the camp, carrying his drunken boss in his arms. Vaas would skin him alive if he knew he was being carried damsel style, but the bastard deserved it for passing out drunk in his lap after the display. Not that he was too mad about the way that Vaas’ head was tucked into the side of his throat, the stiff hairs of Vaas’ Mohawk brushing the underside of his jaw and sometimes jabbed into his earlobe.

The lazy dog by Vaas’ door looked up as he kicked it in and came stomping in. It gave a short and lazy huff that almost sounded like a bark before rolling on its stomach and going back to snoring horrendously. He just sighed before lugging Vaas further in to lay him on something to sleep hangover away. He found one of the man’s little nests tucked away into the boxes and piles of junk and gently eased him into the mess of pillows, blankets and dirty clothes before sitting heavily next to his feet.

“Cock tease motherfucker,” He grunted, yanking one of Vaas’ feet into his lap so he could dig at the mess of knots keep his boots on “Chugging drinks to get up the courage to fucking talk to me about sex and then fucking passing out when you get me all riled up…”

One of his bandaged fingers skidded against one of the knots and ripped open a cut. He spat something venomously out in Spanish that he was sure was appropriate for the occasion. Ripping the ruined bandage off with his teeth, he sucked on the cut until the bleeding eased up before ripping at the knots with his gritty nails and trying not to go for the knife in his boot. Vaas ruined enough shoes as it was. No need for him to ruin another pair despite his anger at his short boss.

“Tying your fucking shoes in goddamn quad knots or some shit,” He spat, getting one of the knots undone and yanking on the laces, dragging cheap plastic thread against the cuts in his hands and making them fucking hurt “Should just fucking leave you like this, asshole motherfucker.”

Once the laces were loose enough he yanked the boot off Vaas’ foot. Vaas’ toes wriggled in his dirty sock as he grabbed the other shoe and did the same only with more swearing as two more cuts got ripped open on his hand. He was actually surprised that Vaas did not wake up with how loudly he was cussing up a storm and bitching about anything and everything. When he yanked the other boot, it got tossed aside before he twisted around to yank Vaas’ pants off.

The second his fingers curled around Vaas’ buckle, a wiry arm snapped out and almost got his jaw.

“¡Vete a la mierda!”

“THEN GET UNDRESSED YOURSELF, YOU FUCKING DRUNK!” He snapped, shoving Vaas. The man rolled off the nest and ended up ass up in the air, drunk and bewildered eyes looking at the far wall.

“Wha…?” Vaas said stupidly.

“Get undressed and sleep off your fucking hangover,” He said as he stormed out “It’s almost sunrise and I ain’t getting yelled at if someone needs your sorry hide and you’re still fucking zonked out.”

“H-hermano?” Vaas called out after him.

…Fuck.

Despite all the annoyed anger he had for the man, there was just something there in that thin thread of sound…

He trailed back into the room, finding that Vaas had righted himself and was looking up at him. His eyes were misty, far gone into a drunken stupor that he was sure would take more than a few hours to burn through. One of his arms was caught in his sleeve, likely an attempt to get undressed. He almost looked pathetic… but he knew better then to think that.

“I got you, Vaas,” He sighed, trotting over to the man.

Vaas wriggled his trapped arm as he stooped down by the drunken idiot and gently worked his arm free and then tugged the shirt over his head. He looked a lot better out of it, and would look all the better with his normal clothing on, and all his jewelry and the bits and bobs that just suited him to a T.

Vaas struggled with his pants, but managed to wriggle out of them, leaving him in a pair of beat up boxers. Digging in the boxes of junk eventually produced him a pair of ratty shorts and a tank top that matched, handing them over to Vaas so he could struggle to put them on. At one point he had to yank down on the shirt to get it on the man, but at least he was dressed in something before he sluggishly crawled into the nest of blankets and such.

“Fuc…kin….fawk….fox…” Vaas drunkenly slurred.

“That’s right,” He said, tossing the flashy clothing into the boxes of things.

“Hnngghh…J-jason?”

That alien word, the name he had given up to keep living this wild life with the short man. Future, luxury and his old way of life for the pirate trade and Vaas…

“I’m here,” He said, stepping towards the man’s bedside and bending down so he could be more level with him.

Vaas was already half buried by blankets and clothing, his Mohawk wilting, falling across his buzzed and scarred scalp. It had gotten about an inch longer in the few months that he had known him, probably needed a trim when Vaas’ hands were not shaking too much. He mindlessly shifted the hair to at least one side of his head to make some order out of the chaos.

Bleary eyes peered at him, as though he was hard to see.

“M-mi corazón?” Vaas slurred out.

“I’m here Vaas,” He said, patting the man’s cheek to get him to focus.

“…Mi corazón…” Vaas sighed before his eyes closed.

He waited until Vaas’ snoring started before righting the blankets and then lugging it to his bunk to shamelessly jack it off to the thought of his boss and the dirty dancing he had done earlier.

* * *

When he finally managed to crawl out of bed, it was sunset.

His breakfast was really what should have been his dinner had he not been comatose most of the morning. But nothing beat a thick slab of mystery meat and sautéed fruits with a couple of cold beers and Carlos telling him about the tourists he had caught.

Carlos’ hands were still signing and he was still stuff food in his face when he realized that he did not have his bandana on.

He thought about going to go get it… but figured if the hour he had spent being surrounded by hungry pirates stuffing their faces and drinking and they had not noticed anything? Then he was good. The lower half of his face was still more banged up then any of them remembered anyway, what little fat gone and his skin tanned more, so it could have been anyone for all they knew.

Carlos signed to him about Hoyt coming by, Vaas nearly missing a bullet because Hoyt did not necessarily need him.

“What’d he want?” He said, mouth still full of food.

Carlos signed out that the big, bad boss of the pirates wanted a few of the best to set up a few raids against Citra. She seemed to be pushing into pirate territory lately and interrupting drug and slave trades, if not outright hitting and halting them.

“What the fuck would that cunt want with drugs and slaves?” He asked.

Here the mute man shrugged before hitting his back solidly. He signed out that she might have been using the slaves as recruits and the drugs to fuel her mind control over them. Seemed like a solid theory, based on the one time that he was tripping balls on the stone alter and she assaulted his limp body.

“Vaas will probably set something up when he comes back from the dead,” He said, downing his drink to wash down some of the greasy meat and fruit “If Citra trying to take territory from us and trying to attack our drug and slave lines, then it’s definitely time to push back.”

Carlos nodded, grabbing and shaking his shoulder to further prove his approval.

Actually… speaking of Vaas…

“Hey Carlos, if I ask you something, promise not to be a dick about it?” He asked.

Carlos started signing out how to ask for a blowjob before he grabbed the man’s hands and glared at him.

“Funny, funny, asshole,” He grunted, letting the silent man to chuckle as he freed his hands “I just need you to translate something.”

Carlos chuckled, but nodded.

“I think it was… Mi corazón? Something like that?” He asked.

Carlos actually blushed at that, hands coming up to cover his mouth as the mute man stared at him.

“What?” He asked.

Carlos started to sign out that they were friends and all, but he had no idea that he had felt that way about him.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He snapped.

Carlos signed out that that mi corazón translated meant ‘my heart’ and was used more as a heavily romantic term then an actual reference to the heart.

“Romantic… wait…” He paused.

The dirty dancing, the affectionate nicknames, the affection in general, getting jealous when he was sent out baiting…

“Oh shit,” He muttered.

Carlos stared in confusion at him for a moment.

“…Carlos… I think Vaas has a thing for me, what do I do?” He asked dumbly.

Carlos stared at him for a moment… and then started signing something about the raids again. While he tried to decipher what the in hell brought the topic change, a very familiar warm weight suddenly leaned against him. A heavy head leaned against his shoulder and a familiar but roughed up and sleepy worn voice said

“Amor mio, I’m stealing your food,”

Vaas’ hair was all over the place, the whites of his eyes were almost beat red and almost made his eyes look like emeralds, and heavy purple bags were hanging under his eyes. He was still just wearing the tank-top and shorts that he had picked out for the man prior, probably having just crawled out of bed like he had a bit ago.

Vaas swiped the fork and knife out of his hands and dragged his plate of food over to himself, sluggishly peaking at it while he just stared at the table and ignored the bit of warmth in his face. Carlos looked at him for a moment, at Vaas half draped on him and eating his food, before giving him a small and tight nod before getting Vaas’ attention and telling him about Citra and her raids.

Vaas sluggishly watched him, still slowly eating, probably still too hung over and too tired to get really riled up that his sister was causing trouble once again. When Carlos told him about Hoyt missed him, he cringed softly before slumping further against him. Carlos also signed out that they were waiting for him to get up and around to start planning attacks against Citra and her people again.

“Need time…” Vaas muttered, one of his stringy arms slipping around one of his as he kept eating.

Carlos nodded, awkwardly thumping his knuckles against the tabletop, nervously gnawing his lip for a moment before suddenly finding something else to do, leaving them like they were.

“What’s his fucking issue?” Vaas muttered.

“…No idea,” He said, resting his head against Vaas’.


	7. How the Mighty Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Jason/Vaas and slight Citra/Grant. Fluff, mentioned d/s relationship between Citra and Grant, slight mention of a footjob

It was weird.

The next few days, things ran almost completely normally. Scouts and the stealthy pirates went out baiting, hooked rich tourists to come, Vaas and other heavier groups went and captured them. Tourists were passed through camps based on size and processed, some selected to be put up for ransom and sent home, and others set up for ransom only to be sold into slavery again, and other set to be sold straight into slavery. Those that were not fit to be sold were killed, stripped of everything valuable and dumped by him and Carlos.

There were only two things that were different.

First, Vaas personally set up ‘hit squads’ to strike back against Citra’s raids. The boss man handpicked the best men, women and otherwise for the job and siced them where Citra’s raids were the worst. They came back carrying the ears of Citra’s men to prove the kills, grinning those wild and success crazed grins as Vaas got fewer and fewer reports of them as the days passed. One week and raids were cut in half, another week and they were practically gone. 

Twice Vaas, himself and Carlos joined one of these squads and eliminated those that they could and leaving those that coward and fled with their tails between their legs to tell Citra how they failed. After cutting the ears off the dead to add to the chain hanging in camp, Vaas would grab the sides of his face and get in close. The man stood on the toes of his boots and pressed himself flush against him so he could hear the shorter man’s hammering heart against his chest and see how blown wide his eyes were. Their lips would almost brush together as Vaas roared his triumph.

The second thing was… that things were both completely the same and completely different between him and Vaas.

They kept acting like they did with one another. The same overfriendly, borderline flirtatious behavior between the two of them, except there was a certain… knowing to it. Like Vaas realized that he knew what those honeyed Spanish words meant now and their context, but neither wanted to say anything about it but _they knew_? It was the best way that he could think of it, anyway.

When he ruffled Vaas’ hair, his fingertips lingered a half second longer on Vaas’ mostly buzzed scalp, reverently brushing against scars and uneven stubbly patches before he pulled his hands away as the short man yelled at him and attempted to right the damage. When he slept in the same bed with the man, he nuzzled against the back of Vaas’ warm neck and scratched his stubbly cheek against the stubble on Vaas’ head. When Vaas showed him yet another cut, scratch, splinter or some other kind of wound for him to patch up, once it was neatly bandaged he would comically declare that it only needed a ‘good luck kiss’ to get better and would gingerly press his lips to the bandage while Vaas called him an ass but let him do as he pleased.

Vaas picked up a habit of lovelingly saying a honeyed nickname of affection before playfully taking something of his, like his food or beer, or even whatever he happened to have in his hands just to do it. Vaas also liked to stand on his toes and get in his face, close enough for a kiss but not enough and just grinning that clever and silvery smile of his, but dashing away when he tried to lean his head down just enough to connect. When they slept together, the short man grabbed his arms and wrapped them around himself, wriggling back, sometimes intentionally pressing his ass back and pressed tightly against his pelvis and wriggling until he would desperately try and stop his teasing movement.

They acted the same… but there was a knowing about it. They knew, but did not say that there was more meaning behind it.

Maybe it was their long prior history of trying to kill each other and all that they knew. Vaas having tried multiple times to kill him, kill his siblings, his friends, having attempted to sell them into slavery after getting heavy ransoms from their parents. The times that he had attempted to kill Vaas in turn, the sheer and staggering number of pirates of Vaas’ that he had killed, slaughtering Bucky like a pig, fraternizing with Citra and getting assaulted by her, the one weak attempt to kill Hoyt.

They had their history and an unsure future, so it was hard to just go up to the other and say something, easier to just tiptoe the whole mess.

* * *

“Mi corazón?”

He was trying to shave using a sharpened folding knife, a dirty and cracked mirror propped up against a box, and some soapy water in a dingy bowl. He actually managed to get his face under control and was not shaving away the five o’clock shadow left behind so he could skip out on shaving for a bit.

He thankfully did not cut himself when Vaas spoke up, but he still put the knife down as he turned to look at the shorter man.

“Yeah, Vaas?” He asked, scrubbing the heel of his palm against the slightly shave agitated skin.

The shorter man had just rolled out of bed not long after him, was still wearing a baggy red tank that he would probably wear through the day and some baggy shorts that hung loosely over his lean hips. Vaas was holding a syringe in a shaking hand. Both his hands were shaking pretty badly, actually. There were purple bags underneath his bloodshot eyes and he looked a bit pale despite his naturally dark skin tone. 

“Uh…” He dumbly said.

“My motherfucking hands won’t stop fucking shaking,” Vaas said, “Can you shoot me with this?”

“This shit’s not gonna make your hands shake more, is it?” He asked, still reaching out and taking it regardless.

“Nah,” Vaas said with a weak and faltering little grin.

Vaas sat on the nest of blankets and sleeping bags, himself taking a seat right next to him. The shorter man rolled up the leg of the shorts that he was wearing, revealing a lean and muscular thigh dusted with thin and dark hairs. There were some faded self harm scars, little neat almost white lines in two side by side rows, that he ignored in favor of a patch of skin marked with little needle marks that Vaas probably abused.

“What is it?” He asked, pressing his thumb into the patch of little scars so he could feel for a vein.

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty white boy head about,” Vaas said.

He pressed his thumb down into the feverish skin, feeling a vein throb underneath the calloused pad of his thumb. Vaas gritted his teeth, muscles tensing underneath his hand before snapping back to relaxed. Keeping the thumb over the vein, he took up the syringe and pushed out the excess air until the mysterious fluid was almost dripping out. He pressed the sharp tip against where the vein was and gently pushed in until the metal broke the dark skin.

Vaas’ head flopped down against his shoulder, the hair of his Mohawk prickled against the side of his neck. He scrubbed the prickly left over stubble along his jaw against the stubble of Vaas’ head as he pressed the mysterious liquid into Vaas’ blood, pressing the plunger down until nothing was left. Gently he tugged the syringe out, keeping his thumb against the small prick in the skin as he set the syringe aside to look for a band-aid.

Luckily there was a discarded first-aid box by his foot that Vaas had probably busted out the day prior. There were only finger band-aids, but stuck regardless as he smoothed it over and patted the man’s thigh to let him know that he was done.

“Thanks, mi corazón,” Vaas said slowly and sleepy like.

“Can I ask what this stuff was now?” He asked, mindless stroking Vaas’ thigh.

“…You can probably guess,”

He patted Vaas’ thigh, pressed up against his. Vaas’ skin felt warm against his own, thin and wiry hair scrubbing each other’s skin, the occasional scrap of the neat lines on Vaas’ thigh rubbed against his own and a jagged scar that marred his thigh from where he got mauled by a shark bite. He dragged his fingers reverently across Vaas’ skin, his life and all its struggles and battles literally engraved into it.

He turned his head to the side and kissed Vaas’ throbbing temple. Vaas’ eyes opened a bit and those bloodshot eyes turned to look at him. Vaas’ mischievous mouth quirked up into a minute smile, sharp and white teeth baring themselves in a warm and friendly manner.

“Don’t’ fucking get mushy on me, mi corazón~,” Vaas teased.

“Says the guy that just got me to do his T shot,” He snorted, kissing Vaas’ smile wrinkled cheek.

“PUTA!” Vaas roared before he was tackled.

* * *

Citra looked at the meager numbers that she had left, lingering in small camps in her temple. They looked miserably at their small fires and muttered with absolute fear about the next raid. Even her charm and normal ways of keeping them obedient could not help when faced with certain death by her brother’s lethal hit squads.

“We can probably move focus to the outer islands for now,” Grant said as he dragged his gritty fingers along said small speckling of islands “Scouts tell us that Hoyt’s men don’t often go there and it’s mostly just for traffic for his drug and black market trading.”

“If only we had more warriors,” She muttered to herself, gnawing on her lower lip.

“Vaas has been vigilant,” Grant said “Doesn’t help that he seems to have this professional mercenary in his midst.”

“Professional?” She scoffed, folding her arms across her chest and turning aggressively towards her American pet who flinched “Vaas recruits many, but professionals?”

“Y-yeah, this mysterious guy that wears a heavy pair of goggles and bandana,” Grant said, cowering as she stalked over to him, closer and closer “Grade A+ killer that sometimes jumps into raids. Mostly he seems to stick to Vaas’ main camp, so he might be a bodyguard.”

“My foolish brother recruits the misfits and unfits of society,” She pressed, planting a foot on her pet’s chest and pushing him down and onto his back “If this so called professional is stuck to him like a mutt on a chain, then he must be from Hoyt.”

Grant gave her his best submissive face and her anger cooled slightly. She dragged her toes up and down his hard stomach as she thought about it. When an idea came to her, she coyly dragged her toes down until they found the little brass button holding her pet’s pants at his waist.

“Tell the scouts to find out about this professional,” She demanded with a sultry purr, dragging her toes down until her pet gasped roughly and bucked his hips “I want to find out why Hoyt would try so hard to protect him, and if this professional can be recruited to our side.”

“Y-yes, m-my goddess,” Grant panted underneath her.

Truthfully, if this professional was so good, he would make for an excellent replacement for this useless pet of hers. He had failed so much recently that his prowess no longer enticed her. But a man that was a Grade A+ killer? A professional hired by Hoyt himself to protect that useless brother of hers? Then he might have been the warrior that she was truly looking for to sire in a new generation of powerful warriors. Grant had already failed her on that anyway, producing nothing despite almost half a year of trying with the man.

When she dragged her foot over the hard curve of his manhood, hidden beneath his jeans, she was already thinking of ways of making this new warrior hers.


End file.
